16 October

Today on World Food Day, Auckland City Mission – Te Tāpui Atawhai is asking New Zealanders to help end food insecurity with a renewed call to close the pay gap and support pay equity.

Auckland City Missioner – Manutaki, Helen Robinson, says that every day the Mission sees the hardship of people who do not have access to sufficient food. She notes that lack of nutrition leads to physical and mental health issues and negatively affects well-being. It contributes to social exclusion and non-attendance at school, sport, and work.

Robinson notes that overwhelmingly, women – particularly women raising children on their own - are the face of food insecurity, needing boxes of food so their children are adequately fed. She directly links this to an ongoing issue of pay inequity, resulting in women having less money to buy food.

Right now, food insecurity affects more than one in 10 adults in Aotearoa*. The situation worsened dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to worsen with the current cost-of-living crisis.

“At the Mission we see food insecurity issues through our provision of food to people who quite simply have nowhere else to turn,” says Robinson. Last year, the Mission served 41,977 sit down meals in their community dining room, Haeata, and distributed more than 63,000 food parcels – equating to over 3m meals - to families in need**.

Evidence shows that for every dollar that a Pākehā man earns, a Pākehā woman doing the same work earns just 89 cents***. For Māori and Pacific peoples, the gap is even wider.

‘That’s why on this year’s World Food Day, I am asking all of Aotearoa, to commit to pay equity.”

“The Mission support the campaign #MindtheGap which calls on the Government to take urgent action on pay gaps by requiring medium and large employers to measure and publish their pay gaps,” says Robinson. She adds ‘We’re asking other organisations to do the same and put their name to the campaign, in a hope that publishing pay gaps will encourage companies to close them.”

Mind the Gap is pleased to have the support of Auckland City Mission, saying “International evidence shows that when we know what and where the pay gaps are, we can work to close them. It will allow us to end pay discrimination that negatively impacts women, Māori and Pacific peoples, and to become a fairer nation where everyone has access to enough nutritious food.”

Click here to find out how you can support the Mind the Gap campaign.

To support the Auckland City Mission – Te Tāpui Atawhai, click here.

* https://www.rph.org.nz/public-health-topics/nutrition/kai-and-our-community/assessing-the-current-state-of-food-insecurity-in-new-zealand2.pdf

**Year ending June 2022

*** https://genderequal.nz/datastories/not-just-gender-pay-gap/

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